Quicken Essentials for Mac Review

Well it’s finally here the much awaited release and my review of Quicken Essentials for Mac. Okay maybe not everyone was waiting for my review but it’s nice that it’s finally out I think you can agree. There’s a definite drought in the Mac world as far as personal finance software is concerned. The good news is that the field is widening as the You Need a Budget 3.0 is in full swing which will run on PC and Mac. I was anxious to see how this Mac specific version stacked up to YNAB and also to Quicken 2010 for the PC which I recently reviewed. So grab a cup of coffee and let’s see what they’ve got.

By the way most screenshots are clickable for a nice wide 1024 x 768ish view of the window.

Where to Buy?

There’s honestly not a reason to buy a physical copy of Quicken Essentials in the store as you’ll see in the unboxing section unless you can get a great deal. You can purchase direct from Quicken and download it immediately to get going.

Quicken Essentials Unboxing

Large cardboard box with a CD in a paper sleeve and a flipping credit card offer. Quick installation instructions? Nope. Bonuses for those who purchased the actual physical copy? Nil.

Documentation

Keeping in tradition with the Quicken 2010 version there is nothing in the box but when you install the software there is a getting started PDF that is somewhat helpful. It pretty much covers the basics of getting going and was enough for me to get cranking.

Getting Help

Like the other Quicken software I’ve used the help is severely lacking. It doesn’t have inline help like you’d expect from most any program. I’m honestly a Mac noobie and the detailed help built into Snow Leopard got me going no problem but once I fired up Quicken Essentials it’s just not there. Instead you are directed to the Live Community where you can look up the information. I would have much preferred that there was a base level of help and then I could go online to get more data if needed. I really think the Live Community is an easy way to get users to make the documentation for them.

Quicken Essentials Startup Screen

When you fire up Quicken Essentials for the Mac for the first time you get a quick 3 step process overview which gets your pertinent information to start tracking your expenses. First you’ll setup your banking information, throw in any recurring bills you want to track and then finally setup some spending or savings goals. It’s budget like.

Quicken Essentials Check Register

Pretty much a mirror of most personal finance software including older versions of Quicken and Microsoft Money. It’s the familiar date, payee, category, tags, account and amount. As you should be able to you can split your transactions among various categories and assign tags to each and every transaction. Each transaction is a single line so it’s much easier to navigate through all of your transactions. No surprises here it works perfectly fine and is probably where you’ll spend most of your time.

Downloading Transactions into Quicken Essentials

Previous versions of Quicken required a two step process to download transactions involving importing them and then accepting each item. Quicken Essentials merely downloads and then categorizes into the appropriate account. I can’t comment on any issues with this as it worked fine for my downloads. To me I did like the old double check of me approving my transactions but I’m a little paranoid. Quicken claims to have connectivity to over 13,000 different financial institutions. Indeed my credit union and bank were represented but I could not automatically download the transactions from my credit union I had to import a downloaded file. That is a function of my credit union’s choice not to participate in the automatic download not the fault of Quicken Essentials. Again if you are paranoid that might be a better option anyways to keep your account information even more private. It’s nice that you have the option either way. Above notice the manual download portion just drag the file onto the window and you’re good to go.

Identifying New Transactions

When you import your financial institutions data it will show up with a blue ball in the status column. Once you have review it and mark it as reviewed it changes to a blue circle. There’s at least a highlight so you can make sure that transactions matched appropriately or not. They will eventually age out and change the status to the blue circle after time.

Quicken Essentials Scheduled Transactions

It’s very easy to setup a recurring transaction, go to the Transactions menu a flyaway window shows up where you can pick on a calendar, schedule the recurrence and all the features you’d expect. This does highlight the nice ease of use of this program which was clearly the focus. It’s important to note that this is merely adding the transaction in Quicken Essentials it’s not going to pay that bill.

Quicken Essentials Budgeting

When you fire up Quicken Essentials and walk through the top 3 steps you’ll be prompted to enter the budget information which is where I’m looking for some good tools. Honestly it was pretty slick, based on my transactions it automatically downloaded from my bank it was able to suggest some starting amounts either from the last month or a 3 month average. It’s a good way to get going setting up your budget and something you might have to do manually in other programs.

It did a decent job in categorizing a lot of my expenses automatically although you’ll want to tweak them yourself to get them in your preferred setup. It’s very basic budgeting and not the zero based budget that I so love. It’s more of a spending goal type scenario providing a shiny face to your check register. Frankly it was a bit of a letdown. I was planning to review a product that covered the basics and did it well of which I think budgeting belongs but apparently Intuit disagrees with me.

Categories and Tags

Quicken Essentials uses categories which should be familiar with any personal finance software that you may have used but adds the concept of tags that will allow you to report on other forms of information. For instance if you are going on a vacation you can tag transactions from various categories to get a comprehensive view of what you may have spend on food, clothing, and hotel charges. Then it’s easy to call up a report and see what went where.

Overview Window

Some slick graphics give you a breakdown of your financial snapshot including any bills upcoming, where your money is going with sweet clickable pie chart and how you are doing budget wise with your savings goals.

Quicken Essentials Reports

I sure liked the sound of the spending cloud but it’s implementation was not as cool as I hoped. You’re probably used to this concept if you’ve spent anytime on the Internet you’ve probably seen some tags related to the website with words in different sized fonts. In fact if you look the the right sidebar of FiscalGeek towards the bottom you’ll see what I’m talking about. You can click through your tag names and see the transactions related to that tag and if you wish you can have that specific report added to the sidebar. The reporting is pretty rudimentary and if you thought you were going to be managing your business from Quicken Essentials you better look somewhere else.

Quicken Essentials Investment Tracking

Nonexistent. Okay that’s not entirely true you can track the overall total value of an investment to calculate your net worth but that’s about it.

Exporting Quicken Essentials Data to TurboTax

Not so much. Strangely there is no option to export your data for use with TurboTax something that pretty mucah all other versions of Quicken support.

Bill Paying Options

Negative. You’ll be using your bank’s website for that one or getting out some stamps.

Other Advanced Features

I just had to include this because it’s almost as if Intuit just wanted to get it out of the way. From the Quick Start Guide:

"Quicken Essentials does not include many of the advanced features in other versions of Quicken, including Business features, Rental Property, lifetime planner, cash flow forecast, spending plan, debt reduction plan, emergency tax records, tax planner, and home inventory manager."

And that’s where it ends. No future promises, no alternatives. You’re out of luck if that was what you are looking for. These are all items that exist in the Windows world but are unavailable natively on the Mac.

Converting other financial software data to Quicken Essentials

If you have data from older Quicken for Mac, Quicken for Windows or Microsoft Money you can import into Quicken Essentials. You can find out more at http://quicken.com/go/movetomac If you have been operating on Quicken 2010 you’ll need to export the data in a .QXF file that you can then import to Quicken Essentials. The key is you can’t combine multiple files to import. So if you did part in Money and part in Quicken which I don’t think is likely you’ll have to pick only one. Not a big deal.

Quicken Essential for the Mac Review Wrap-Up and Recomendations

Who’s it For?

This is targeted at the Mac user who doesn’t want to have to go to the bother of running windows and installing Quicken 2010 and it’s many variants. It’s a fine introduction to expense tracking and does a great job downloading data from your bank. The interface is also very well done and will remind you of all of your other Mac applications.

Who’s It Not For?

Obviously anyone that is not on a Mac running Leopard or Snow Leopard software based on the Intel chipset. Otherwise don’t even bother. There is no equivalent version for the PC.

It’s also not for the personal finance software power users out there. You are not going to build elaborate budgets or keep a day to day watch on your investments with this software. It’s very scaled down to handle the basic functions well but seriously lacks in the bells and whistles that the PC versions have.

My Recommendation

Since I consider my self a personal finance software power user this is not for me. It just doesn’t have all of the features I’m looking for. I primarily want a budgeting focused piece of software that adds investment tracking and automatic data downloading as a nice to have. It just doesn’t hit this mark. If you are a relative newcomer to the market or want to just get started then this might be a nice place to start. Otherwise I’d go with You Need a Budget.

Is QFM any more than Mint.com ? I’m not clear on why one would want QFM (and pay $60) for functionality they can find for free with Mint.com Obviously it keeps the data on your Mac instead of in the cloud, but hell the data’s in the cloud anyway (your bank and brokerage sites). What’s the difference?

It’s a bit more polished but I do believe it’s by some of the same coders so will be very much like Mint but standalone. There are some that are dead set against keeping their data, tax, financial what have you in the “cloud” and prefer this standalone model. That’s why TurboTax still has two product bases. I think it’s really targeted at that market.

I agree that it is a bit more polished than Mint.com, but it has lost a lot of functionality from my Quicken 2007 for Windows (which I was very happy with). However, since I don’t need the investment tracking and I use Online Bill Pay as opposed to printing checks it did provide me with the BASIC functionality I do need. But still not worth $70!

Since I’ve been a Quicken user for over 3 years and receive 50% off offers to upgrade my windows version every other week, I called them and asked that the same discount be applied to my Essentials purchase.

Yes there is carryover aka sinking funds from month to month. Although not having run it for months I can’t tell you how well it’s going to work versus something like YNAB that’s built around the idea.

I would be importing data into Quicken for Mac 2010 from a PC version of Quicken 2003. Any idea if this is a seamless process. I previously purchased Quicken for Mac 2007 and the process was painful – I gave up hoping that Quicken for Mac 2010 would fix this.

DON”T DO IT!!! Keep your old Quicken 2003. New Quicken Essentials 2010 MAC does not offer the “print checks” option. Once you convert, all your old files are translated into Quicken 2010 and you are not able to go back to your old program. IT IS NOT WORTH YOUR MONEY. Just use Mint.com There is no difference from Quickent 2010 and it is FREE. OR buy iBank but translate/export your old Mac Quicken 2003 files to their format. You can write checks from iBank. INTUIT has bought Mint.com INTUIT has certainly produced an upgrade that is absolutely nothing but a NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am a full time developer and an occasional freelancer. I like to keep track of my expenses. I’m not big into investments, etc. I just want a way to keep all my info together and do not think I really need to spend $200 for Quickbooks or something Would Quicken be good enough for that? Or can you recommend another Mac Software application. (I also have an iPhone, that I would love syncing ability.)

It will keep track of your expenses fine, you can put a specific tag on your business expenses or create a separate category and then report on that category. So you could do a yearly report of that data. No syncing ability with your iPhone although you can with Mint if you’ve ever used it before. That’s currently a free service you can at least try that if iPhone syncing is an important feature.

I purchased this and am a long time Quicken Windows user. The export via QFX and subsequent import was flawless. I have no need for Investment Transaction detail, I had real problems with the investment accounts. My Scottrade account was created with no problem. Displayed all I needed. Tried to setup my account with Cambridge Investment Research. They are on the Direct Connect list. It works in QW. Does not work in QEM. Why? Their Financial Firms list in incomplete. They have CIR but only one link to a firm that does not service my account. I sent an email to support. They suggested Web Connect. CIR does not support Web Connect. No further reply from them. I went to the online chat support. One hour spent with two reps and no solution. All I was asking them to do was add a link to my firms website so I could use Direct Connect. I explained it worked in QW. Could not get them to do anything. They finally suggested I setup a call back with phone support. They called me and promptly disconnected. Did they try again? Nope.

Not only this but QEM lacks such basic features as a Save or Save As function, does not support year end maintenance, does not support manual investment account functionality, does not provide for savings bonds in the investment accounts, and the list goes on. I gave up and sent it back for a refund. It boggles my mind that they can spend so much time on it and refuse to listen to the customer. Just go to the Intuit forum under the MAC section and you will see all the problems people are having.

I’ve just purchased QEM and am struggling with the conversion from QW 2004. The Windows version will export a QIF file but not the QXF one that my Mac version seems to expect. Can anyone point me to a solution. Thanks.

I’m getting the impression that this isn’t the product for me. I’ve been looking to possibly get some budget-type software but I think I’ll do some more research first. I’ve heard a great deal about YNAB but being a Mac user there was no option for me. I guess this could be great if you are first getting into budgeting but I want something that can scale up.

I guess it gets down to what you really want to do. Have you tried YNAB 3 for the Mac yet? It runs on Adobe Air now so will run on PC, MAC and Linux. I haven’t run it specifically on a Mac but I’ve been using it on my PC since it was available and care for it a great deal. Quicken essentials has YNAB beat squarely in the account reconciliation area. YNAB is still a manual process so that’s a dealbreaker to a lot of people.

I haven’t trioed Moneydance, but I did purchase and TRY to use iBank for over a year. I finally just gave up. It was far to painful to enter transactions, and of course they did not support import from my bank. Lot’s of fancy graphs and stuff I had no need for, but the nuts and bolts of maintaining a checkbook, savings account, Money Market account, and generating useful reports was far too cumbersome.

I’m sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but please try it before you buy it. I wish I had.

So I downloaded a tried Moneydance, even though, as a professional software engineer with almost 40 years of experience, I am very leery of Java applications (as they rarely are designed for the specific platform thus taking advantage of its features, and Moneydance is no exception). I have all of my primary accounts at a single bank under one password. In setting up these accounts, it asked for the password for each account even though they were under the same login account at the same institution. I could not copy and past a very long , complex, and hence very secure, password. Moneydance does not allow pasting into the password field (it might not allow pasting into dialogs at all – I am not certain and was uninterested in determining if this is the case). Whenever I tried to download transactions, it AGAIN asked for my password FOR EACH ACCOUNT. Again I was unable to copy (from 1Password) my password and paste it into Moneydance. It does not seem to have any desire to remember the password permanently for reasons I am unsure of.

This is a deal breaker for me, YMMV. I deleted the program and have no interest in pursuing it further. It might be a good choice if I were running Linux on my main computer, but I only run linux as the primary OS on my server. I cannot recommend this program.

QEM is certainly missing some features I would like to see, but from my experience, there is no viable option out there at present. Hopefully, they will start adding these features, and I am willing to help fund the development. I don’t love Intuit, and as much as I have tried to find alternatives on the Mac, they have all left me flat thus far.

It has no field to track check numbers, and strips out check numbers from your imported data. New Coke and Hardees textbook examples of business farce, come to mind. Won’t print checks either. We are not yet a paperless society. Totally worthless POS.

Paul, thanks for the review. I was a Money “moderate” power-user until I heard the news that Microsoft was euthanizing it! I immediately switched back to Quicken (2010) — I was a Quicken user back in the early 2000s before switching to Money around 2004. The transfer of data was pretty much seamless. Now I switched to Mac from PC in at year end (wish I did that 20 years ago!!!!), and have been running Quicken 2010 in Windows via Fusion… So with all the deep background, do you think I should make the switch to Quicken Essentials? Quicken is now the only reason I run Fusion, and all works okay, but I guess I’d prefer to have it all on Snow Leopard in a Mac version if I don’t lose too much functionality. I don’t so much care about budgeting, my main thing is being able to download everything and track it. Do you or any others on here have any thoughts?

I am sticking with Quicken 2007 for Mac. I also use Mint, because it is very easy to update.
The budget report on quicken essentials is 8 page long vs 3 in 2007 version. What a waste of paper and it does not look like there is an easy way to do ytd or an entire year. It was not a very wise financial decision to purchase this software.

I tried it and subsequently got a refund. The product does not have the feature that its predecessor had and highly disappointed. It looks good but when you take out much needed items for adding in manual investment transactions it just is not worth the cost. Going back to Quicken 2007 until I can find something else, possible Moneydance.

Hi, I am a new user to QEM and only want to use the basic functions. The problems i had in start up are
1) i could not feed in my opening balances in the bank accounts. How does one do that?
2) I could not figure out how to password protect my file?
Can you please help . thanks

I have used Quicken for years, bought a MAC last year including Quicken 2007 for MAC. I have several issues with 2007, including getting my kind of Report easily. I was hoping the 2010 Essentials would help. I use Quicken mainly for the Registers for checking and credit cards, then Report for the year by categories.

I installed 2010 last night and immediately noticed no place for check numbers. Is there a reason I don’t want check numbers? I don’t download from my bank. I reconcile from statements.

You can set your view preferences to show check numbers. I have no idea why this was not the default setting. In the Register view, simply right-click (Control-click if on a laptop) on the column heading and select “Number” and the check numbers will show up.

However, as a Quicken for Mac user since the early 1990s, I am extremely disappointed with Quicken Essentials and will return mine for a refund under their 60-day money-back guarantee. If enough of us do that, they just might get the hint.

I’ve purchased QEM and used it for about 2 weeks and have to say i’m baffled at how badly Intuit missed the mark with this one. Call it Quicken Basics for Mac and I think I’d be happier…it is very basic.

I’ve been using Quicken 2009 (using Fusion to run Windows)….I’m staying with Q2009 and the hassle of starting Fusion to just run my Financial Software.
.-= Eric D. Brown´s last blog ..Culture and the CIO =-.

I am in the same boat. Too many missing features that I used in QW 2010. So many are elementary that I cannot believe they overlooked. I think what happened is that they bought MINT and said, lets start over and did an almost function for function copy of MINT and sent that out as a starter. Charging the price they did was ridiculous and if I am reading the Quicken Live Community right, most people are returning their copies.

Quicken 2010 for mac is a huge disappointment. I have been using quicken windows for 12+ years and was looking forward to finally shift all my accounting info onto my Mac (had a PC to run the quicken separately), unfortunately the Mac version is a train wreck. I feel like I paid for an early beta software, there are lots of bugs and things that use to be simple on my older versions often take multiple clicks through the menus. Data conversion from windows is buggy, everything I needed seems to have transferred over to the mac version except the last 14 months of one credit card, strange). The “reconcile accounts” user interface is cumbersome, once your in the reconcile mode you can only sort by “date”, also could not find a way of filter out previously reconciled transactions. I would not recommend this software to previous windows versions users. A true disappointment, I will be search for an alternative to Quicken for my Mac.

I have tried to try out Quicken Essentials. Your answer to my question to get check numbers worked, but, is use 4 account registers and can only bring up one.

I have Quicken for PC 2007 on my PC that I haven’t used for a year since I bought my Mac. I have been using Quicken for Mac 2007. I was hoping that the new program would be better. It is awful. So I have a new question….

My Quicken 2007 is still on my PC. Is the PC version of 2010 any good? I only use it for keeping track of my checking and credit card accounts. Then I do an end of year Report, which was very easy on my PC Quicken, but a nightmare on the Mac version 2007. If

If I give up on Mac Quicken and go to the PC 2010, can I import my transactions from my Mac 2007 to my PC 2010. And again, is the PC 2010 any good?

Quicken 2010 is pretty good but it’s not without issues. It has approximately 4 million more features than Quicken Essentials though. Good question on the importing of QEM to Quicken 2010 I couldn’t tell you the answer on that one. You can read my full review plus lively comments on Quicken 2010 and decide for yourself.

I bought this as well, but have put in a request for a refund. I was willing to live with limites functionality but I have run into some bugs which should have been found considering how basic (yet $70 expensive) this product is.
Any entries you make in a cash account do not add to the the totals on your overview screen. Now if you select show-all in overview, the totals suddenly change to relect the cash acct entries. To work around this bug, I had to replace my cash acct with a fake checking account and copy over the transactions. The next problem I ran into is is that transactions from my checking acct are no longer being downloaded. It says no transactions found even though i can see 8 new transactions at my banks website. I suspect (but have not confirmed) that this problem may have arisen after I set up scheduled transactions against the same account, as I was able to get the downloads prior to that… but the whole point is I should not need to debug this app. Its basic and expensive, so the least one can expect is that there are nog glaring bugs in it. Lets not even start talking about exporting my data and a host of other basic features one would expect to have… its a really disappointing product. What were they thinking !

“The next problem I ran into is is that transactions from my checking acct are no longer being downloaded. It says no transactions found even though i can see 8 new transactions at my banks website.”

I noticed this to and found out there is a difference between Direct Connect and Web Connect. I got more accurate results from Web Connect than Direct Connect. It revolved around the last days available transactions.

I am SO disappointed with Intuit right now! I converted to Mac at Christmas and waited 2 frkn months for the Mac Essentials version.

I went thru the conversion and some accounts came across perfectly, but I have both US & Canadian bank accounts and “Essentials” doesn’t even take into consideration a foreign currency conversion {properly}.

Because of that about half of my accounts did not convert the way they should & have a whacked amount in them.

I’d say “save your money” and use what you already have. This ain’t the first time Intuit hasn’t got it right!!!!!

I don’t understand why no one mentioned some obvious disappointing features or rather misfeatures…features that are buggy that no one at Intuit will admit exist. This made me return the product. When you import data from Intuit’s own proprietary product 2007 for Mac, on any given date of maybe 5 to 10 transactions, the debits come in before the credits and you can’t do a thing about it like you can in 2007. The balance column is constantly in the minus if the balance the day before is too low. Don’t you want your credits to be first on a given date and then the debits the way you put them in 2007? Second, the reconcile column in the register doesn’t beef when you accidentally check or uncheck a reconcile item. It is hard to know if QEM even knows or cares that you goofed up your reconciliation with the bank by accidentally messing up the flags because while 2007 screams at you and asks you why you really want to unreconcile an item and has a store of successfully reconciled module by date and amount, the fact is that the manual reconcile feature in QEM can’t add, substract or adjust the balance correctly and each time you do the same reconcile, even trying to figure out what the start fresh feature is for, you get a different number concerning how much you are off from the bank. The adjustment of the register puts you way off even when you do the most simple reconcile. When people ask Intuit to do a step by step first reconcile because they can’t accomplish it, of course on the online community, no intuit personnel tell you how and you can call Intuit many times to complain about what must be bugs in the program and know one tells you how to accomplish what supposedly is the user’s fault. I had to decide if I would risk waiting my 60 days guarantee for a patch which might address the importing problem of backwards credit/debits, the lack of interlock on the reconcile column and finally the apparent buggy manual reconcile. There is no help either from the program or the personnel about what the start fresh feature is (I think it is a batch check-off function to flag every unreconciled item from the concurrent ending date back to the beginning of the account a year ago which begs the question, how does the user remember what checks have not yet cleared the bank if the start fresh feature checks them all off as reconciled when they certainly are not. Try CheckBook Pro for only 24.95 if you just had a checking and savings account. It is a good program and the tech support is friendly and helpful in a sincere way.

I’m using Quicken for Mac 2007 and do track my investments there. I also download my credit card transactions using the older Quicken/Money interface since my credit card company’s software didn’t work with the Quicken 2006 interface. I’m thinking I would prefer to stay with the 2007 version of Quicken, rather than give up the specific investment tracking funcionality. But will I still be able to download transactions from my credit card company? It would be agonizing to have to type in all those transactions!

I am stunned that I can’t track my investments in this version. Completely stunned. I am a Mac user since 1984, and have been using quicken (for a while MYOM way back)… and now I have no idea where to go. Doesn’t anyone else use these programs to track their investments – retirement? – I’m sitting here just shaking my head (Capital Gains, Dividend Income, etc.). I’m now choosing NOT to install QEM and ask for a refund. I’m fuming… fuming. Arrgh!

Mahlon, I understand your pain, I did just see that Mint of mint.com fame is offering Investment tracking in their online service which is now rivaling their paid for software in features. Might be something to check out.

Paul, with the growing number of PC to Mac converts and the market share Quicken has in PC users of financial software products could you offer an opinion as to why Intuit seems to be missing the boat on properly supporting their customer base? Do you think it is just a matter of time for Intuit to create a Mac analogue to the PC product?

Jon,
That’s a great question. I think they felt pressured to get a product out for the Mac and rather than waiting until they had the development cycles to do a full blown version they opted for a simpler package in Quicken Essentials. I don’t know what that’s conveying to the Mac user either it’s that they are second class citizens or that their users base doesn’t want the full features that PC users desire. I honestly believe that they will come out with a full fledged platform for both or go a different route and leverage a platform like Adobe Air that will let the software run on multiple platforms, PC, Mac and Linux. We’ll have to see. But I think it’s pretty clear that the people are tired of having only one lesser feature option for the Mac from Intuit.

It is mint.com. It was announced long ago that Intuit was going to buy Mint.com. Well not only did they buy the company, the decided to take their idea and produce Quicken Essentials and charge 70$ for it. I was almost suckered in to. I’ll keep my mint.com

Yeah feedback is that many of the developers of Mint helped to build this version as they are mostly mac users. There is definitely a population of people that will only use standalone financial software though which is what this product targets. I polled my coworkers informally and a good 30% of them are paranoid and won’t use the online financial services. (We’re all network engineers so that might have something to do with it.)

Well I’ve been on the fence about what to do for quite awhile. I’ve used iBank (hate it)… and since 2004 I’ve used 1 thing that’s hands down the most perfect financial software ever created and does every single thing I want which is MS MONEY…. except it’s since been discontinued.

I went MAC about 2 years ago and I’m running a windows parallel for 3 programs. Media Burning Program I spent $300 on and am too cheap to buy the mac version, MS MONEY 2004 (which was and always has been free), and then a few years back I spent about $100 in Intuit’s Quickbooks Simple Start 2007 for 1 reason only… so I can track receipts and print out a nice profit & loss statement at the end of the year to make taxes a cinch.

I think perhaps I don’t rely on these programs as much as other people because my goals are simple:

1. balance accounts
2. track receipts
3. reports for taxes

I can make my own categories in the MEMO line and do a “Search” at the end of the year for a report. Like for example, since I issue 1099s to people in the memo I’ll just put “PR 2010 (date of the event the person worked)” then at the end of the year all I have to do is a simple search:

1. The person’s name (ex: Jason)
2. PR 2010

And BOOM! I have what I need… the total for the 1099 and life is good. MSMONEY printed out checks perfectly… I’m telling you it did all of it. I just really wanted to be total MAC in 2010, dump the parallels, because overall 9/10 Mac is a way and total better machine.

I’ve always found a way to make this stuff work. So at the risk of all this bad feedback maybe I’ll have some better luck. I’m gonna give Mac Essentials 2010 a throw but I’m also going to use it as a “Fresh Start” and NOT import over my MSMONEY 2004 file. I’ll just connect to my bank… download what I need… and see how the fucntionality is. Maybe I will be able to dump simple start as well.

Bottom line… the refund is guaranteed… so let’s see what happens. I’ll be back to post some more shortly.

I ordered the Quicken Essentials. Printed all my old files and installed. The very first thing they should have on the list of will not work is that it will not work unless you have “Intel Processor”. Not that it is all over I have lost everything. I would like to use the simple “easy to use” as Apple puts it. I need justs a simple program no bank involved. I can put the info in and reconcille. So I got iWorks and went to check register in iNumbers. So far so good. Just one thing. Balance. When I enter the check it doesn’t keep a running balance. I have to do it by hand.
That requires using a calculator. I tried pulling “Sum”over to the column so that it would keep showing the balance automaticaly but it is grayed out and I can’t get it to work. They have formulas but Apple has decided no information is better on this program that they have included. In fact for information you can look up check, register, or check register and there is nothing. Why put in a program that is exactly what I need and not even acknowledge that it is there? Where are the instructions???????? Can anyone please me. I need step by step instructions. mary

I have to say, Quicken Essentials 2010 for Mac is without a doubt the worst piece of software I have ever bought. Even worse than anything Microsoft ever created. I hate the fact that there a so very few other options. This is thing is completely buggy and feature poor.

so unfortunately I got a mac, purchased the Q essentials for mac, installed and transferred a Microsoft Money database over. after taking forever to get that to work, i then realized how bad this program really is. i can’t even print a basic net worth as well as all the other complaints you all have listed. Like someone else wrote, i feel like my intelligence has been insulted to create such a bad program. so i too love MS Money…is my best solution to run a parallel windows and operate Money on that? should i get the PC version of quicken 2010 and run that on my windows parallel? any help would be great….

That’s probably your best option if you want the ability to automatically pull in your bank data and track investments. If you are looking for more basic functions and budgeting then YNAB is probably your best option. Another out there is MoneyDance but again doesn’t offer all the functionality of Quicken 2010.

After chasing my tail on the Quicken Mac whatever, I did exactly what you are suggesting with one caveat: I haven’t moved off Money yet since it’s still good till the end of the year, but I am running Quicken 2010 under Parallels in parallel with Money. Every time I use Money and move over to duplicate my actions in Quicken I’m reminded what a crappy program Quicken really is. I’m still just amazed that MS couldn’t sell the Money product/service to a 3rd party (they did try) because everyone who looked at it concluded Intuit was a gorilla they didn’t want to mess with. Pity – there is a huge hole here and almost no competition and it looks like it will be years before any of the cloud-based approaches (Mint, Yodlee, et al) come up to the functionality of Money or Quicken 2010 – if they EVER do.

david, i might try your plan….what does it mean at the end of the year for money? is it only the automatic updating that stops? when i download info for credit cards and bank, i go to the respective financial institution and create money files. i should still be able to do that right? what about when i click on Update Prices for my stocks, etc…will that stop working?

also, when you move over duplicates to quicken 2010 is that an easy process? does quicken 2010 for pc do pretty much the same stuff as money?

Well what do you know QE users Intuit apparently has been listening. I just got this email:

Price reduction and $20 refund—we are dropping the price from $69.99 to $49.99 and you can receive a $20 refund! If you purchased from a retail store, visit http://www.quicken.com/macrefund and follow the instructions on how to request your refund. Please note, you will be required to register your Quicken product and provide proof of purchase. All requests must be submitted by 5/31/2010. If you purchased Quicken Essentials for Mac from Intuit, your credit card will be credited automatically in 4-6 weeks; you don’t have to do anything.

A series of updates—over the next few months, your product will be automatically updated with new features when you connect to the Internet. The first update is expected to take place by the end of April and will allow you to password-protect your data file and export transaction data to spreadsheets.
Additional updates are scheduled through August, giving you the ability to:

Get a complete picture of your current net worth by entering investment holdings from brokerages that do not connect to Quicken

Better understand your spending by comparing between different time periods

Thanks so much for recommending You Need A Budget! The budgeting features are a huge improvement over Quicken 2007 or Quicken Essentials. The entire program manages to be what Quicken is not, both beautifully designed and feature rich

“Still, Quicken Essentials for Mac will remain an entry-level product for users with relatively simple financial management needs, Wu said. ‘We have [an] ongoing development effort to address more advanced needs. The plan is to develop a separate product that will meet those needs, and have feature parity with Quicken Deluxe on Windows.’ “

Simple is hard; it’s a lot more difficult to make a simple product, it requires rigorous mental effort. The simplest products – 37 signals – are effective because a lot of thought went into deciding what NOT to include. By that measure, Quicken Essentials is a complete disaster.
The lack of export is a great example. Because there is limited capability to analyze within Quicken, it’s even more important to be able to export to something more flexible (a spreadsheet). Yet you can’t.
Another example is shortcuts. The original quicken had lots, such as (-) and (+) to move by one day. Yet now, the only way to adjust the date is by reentering the entire date or picking the calendar, very slow if it’s a different year.
Yikes.

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP! I have used Quicken on PC since 1998, recording every transaction for the last twelve years. While the basic accounts did convert fine all the investments accounts didn’t and I had to set the up as asset accounts. Still, I wanted to switch everything to the Mac and Quicken was the last step to do so, so it seemed worth the effort.

But the reporting is awful once you’re used to PC Quicken Deluxe. The ‘help’ is abysmal.

I just can’t understand why Intuit did such a poor job in trying to help folks like me move from PC to Mac. It’s the worst software product I’ve EVER purchased and I’m, sadly, giving up and going back to the PC.

As a 20+ year Quicken user and a Mac user for 4+ years, I would suggest the following if you are using a Mac with and Intel chip:

Run windows with Fusion software and the PC version of Quicken. In addition to giving you the outstanding functionality of PC Quicken, you have the added security of having to launch your virtual PC to get to your financial files. Yet with Snow leopard’s “Spaces” you can simple switch back and forth with a click between your Mac and your “PC”…works great.

Paul and others – Like many, I used Quicken on a PC for many, many years and loved it. Three years ago I switched to Mac (best move ever) and attempted to use Quicken for Mac 2007. It became corrupted and all efforts to fix it failed (many $$$ paid to Quicken for tech support). I need a program for Mac that will pay bills, write checks, and (preferably) used a register like Quicken so I can see where I am and where I’m going. Obviously, Quicken for Mac 2010 is not the right program because it does not pay bills nor does it write checks. The Bank of American free internet banking has many flaws (no register, won’t write checks, and you can’t tell where you are after entering future payments).

Well I spoke too soon… already everyone start laughing because it looks like I’m going to be using Quicken Mac 2010 after all and now the only thing I’ll be using Windows Parallels for is Simple Start 2007.

For whatever reason I have 2 Virtual Machines installed on the machine and so I thought it would be a good idea to delete the pointless one. Well, even after checking, I apparently deleted the wrong one and now I can’t access my MSMONEY file at all. It’s gone.

Although I guess I did the right thing because my Simple Start File is still there and that opens/works fine and so does the burning program I like.

In a digital joke perhaps my MSMONEY file got mad at me when I installed the new program? I will be now forcing myself to use Quicken for managing my accounts.

Good luck to us all… I’m going go and play in traffic during rush hour…

Hi Paul,
I have been using Quicken since 1992 and currently using Quicken Home and Business edition, as I have several accounts and files in one Quicken. Recently I bought Quicken for Mac and I was sold the last version 3 weeks ago. I tried to transfer the files to Mac version and learnt that you can transfer only one file or one account. Question:
1. Is there any way I can have multiple accounts in Mac version 2010
2. If this is possible how we can do.
3. is this Mac 2010 version compatible to Quicken Home and Business 2010
4.If not still I have to stick to Pc version and use PC laptop. I have converted every thing to Mac except Quicken.
5. If Quicken is not the software to use in place of Home and Business edition what other software is available ?
6. As I just bought the new software 2008 3 weeks ago do I have still buy the 2010 version or the Quicken will give me new version free to download.
Thanks

I live overseas (currently Singapore) and work in 3 currencies. Does the MAC version support accounts in different currencies? Does it allow reporting and budgeting to be in different currencies?

I have spent a couple of decades on the Canadian version but am looking at transferring to the US version so I can convert to MAC version.

From reading all your informative, if not incredibly positive, posts on the latest MAC Quicken would I be correct in summarising that I would be better to stick with windows version and run windows OS on my MAC?

I looked at You Need a Budget and find it wanting: There are no categories! You can’t put your expenses into categories, say applying an expense to a particular project under the master category. In Quicken they are known as Classes.

That’s a dealbreaker for me. And I was willing to look beyond the religious bent the developers seem to be taking (I’m assuming they’re in Utah but no contact information).

Lastly, a SEVEN day trial? Good gravy, that’s nowhere near long enough to evaluate a program for $60.

And I’d like to respectfully suggest you be careful about pointing every single person to YNAB at the end of each review.

Seen all these problems. I keep a fifty dollar PC tucked away for those programs that just aren’t as good on the MAC. Quicken is one of them. I keep a lot of stuff on both an iMac and then on a laptop that I wouldn’t want to have ripped off. My financial stuff never leaves my house.

I’m using Quickbooks on PC now to keep track of basic business expenses, bills, sending and receiving invoices and so on. Is this an easier more reliable alternative to quickbooks? At this point I’m just frustrated with some of the inaccuracies and glitches (like not sending my invoices all the time).

I am also disappointed in Quicken Essentials for Mac…I haven’t been able to customize a report…a simple profit and loss statement…Have been a satisfied Quicken for Microsoft for years.
Can’t get check numbers and notes to print on the category summary report, which is what I’m using since I can’t get a profit and loss statement….
I don’t always input and may have to play catch up for several months…when I go to put a new transaction in, it takes forever to put in a date that’s not the current one.

I think it is time for Apple to get into this marketplace. Intuit has dropped the ball too many times for not only the Mac, but their Windows customers. Apple could easily shoot Intuit dead with a better, simpler, but more capable product.

Most other vendors are simply too scared to compete with the Intuit and Microsoft brands in the room.

Apple, please do what is good for customers and your own pocketbook and shoot Intuit dead by competing head-on with their crapware.

Seriously?….no ability to “void” a transaction? Also, during import, if you have 10 transactions on a particular day with a mix of debits and credits….all debits are posted before the credits leaving your register looking like you continually overdraw your account.

I received it yesterday – and am returning it tomorrow. What a shame – I love my Quicken 2006 for Mac and now will have to find something else.

Migrated from Quicken 2007 to Quicken Essentials for Mac, and regret it. The simple interface has been replaced by the worst interface I’ve had the misfortune to work with. I’ve would have been happy if they just updated the code to work on Intel.

Inuit obviously thinks Mac users are stupid. After using Quicken for many years on a PC I switched to a MAC at my desk and then to Quicken for the MAC. This version is designed for grade school kids. I hope someone besides Inuit puts out a great product that’s worth switching to. Inuit has had it’s day…the market is ready for a new leader…someone that does not think MAC users are number adverse idiots.

I am presently using QuickBooks on my MacBook Pro. It is too complicated and I don’t use the features it provides. I find it hard to print reports and difficult to use. I purchased Quicken Essentials for Mac. Will I be able to transfer my data from QuickBooks into Quicken?

With the arrival of Lion, the Mac world is changing. Also with the soon to come end of Mobile Me and Lion’s dawning of iCloud to take it’s place I desperately needed to prepare for the inevitable. With my Business and home finances fully entrenched in Quicken 2007 and it’s incompatibility with Lion, I began my research. First up was Quicken Essentials and it’s endless bitching and moaning reviews. I soon moved on and downloaded a trial version of iBank, the one touted as the best alternative for the Mac out there. After days of frustrating endless clicking to achieve the simplest of tasks that Q07 had spoiled me with, I realized I’d rather stay with Snow Leopard and Q07 or kill myself than to continue on in an iBank world.
After that experience I left it alone for a few months. It wasn’t until I read all that I was missing by not upgrading to Lion that I finally decided to suffer with all the shortcomings of QEM in exchange for the benefits of Lion. So on 9/23/11 I purchased and set up QEM with the intention of spending the remainder of 2011 acclimating myself to the misery of Essentials before actually leaving Q07. Today is Sunday 9/25/11 and the painless process has me ready to set up my QEM shop monday morning. Yes, I wish reports were as customizable as they are in Q07 but I’ve found that with careful use of Tags, (with are Q07’s Classes which port over seamlessly) reports can work just fine. I was worried about the absents of quick reports but I find that the search field is even quicker and can be used to search on Payee, categories and so on. The time I will save with now having my bank included for transaction downloads as well as the auto transfer field far out weigh the minor time spent on working around the reporting issues.
Intuit gets a bad rap for neglecting the Mac world but they have continued to upgrade QEM, now to version 1.6.1 and say they will continue to do so. Yes, they are not as fast at it as we impatient Mac users would like, but it’s no where near the evil Mac hating intuit that the complainers would have us believe. Maybe this positive review of QEM might not have been so accommodating had it not been for all the complainers preparing me for the worst and setting my expectations so low.

I am looking for some advice on scheduled transactions. I had Quicken for PC and have just installed Quicken on my Mac, which is my main computer. Is there anyway to view a calendar of scheduled transactions, as there was on the PC version? I’d like to be able to edit an upcoming scheduled transaction, weeks in advance, but can’t seem to find how to do that. I have had to wait until the transaction shows in my register. Thank you!

I’m considering converting from my PC version of Quicken 2008 to Mac Essentials. Does anybody know if the Mac version has the business travel feature where you can keep track of your miles traveled and costs and be able to print out the information? Thanks.

Converted to QE2010 last year when I bought my mac. With great pain, I got the 2011 farm books completed. Now I’m ready to manually enter data for 2012 (we use for tax records only – do not reconcile with the bank). It did not save the spending categories. Is there a way to restore these?

This latest Quicken version is a huge disappointment. What makes things worse is that Intuit has done such a great job in previous versions. I use Quicken to track personal finances as well as performing simple accounting for several small companies. For personal use it seems barely satisfactory but for the companies, it is not.

Rather than adding a more robust feature set in this upgrade, Intuit *took away* important abilities. There are a number of items that were not enhancements but the two most troubling are export of reports to excel and balance sheet creation. Both must now be done manually. IMHO, these sorts of exclusions are inexcusable. I am praying to the accounting gods that Intuit comes to their senses and adds these features back in the next version.

I was using quicken 2002 on my PC and have recently changed to a mac. I had no problems with the previous setup. I reconciled my account on a monthly basis. I am wondering if I should just purchase the quicken 2007 or the CheckBook Pro after reading about all the problem everyone is having with the Quicken 2010. All I really want to do is balance/reconcile my account. I am not interested in the fancy stuff. Thoughts? mn

Well I spoke too soon… already everyone start laughing because it looks like I’m going to be using Quicken Mac 2010 after all and now the only thing I’ll be using Windows Parallels for is Simple Start 2007.

For whatever reason I have 2 Virtual Machines installed on the machine and so I thought it would be a good idea to delete the pointless one. Well, even after checking, I apparently deleted the wrong one and now I can’t access my MSMONEY file at all. It’s gone.

Although I guess I did the right thing because my Simple Start File is still there and that opens/works fine and so does the burning program I like.

In a digital joke perhaps my MSMONEY file got mad at me when I installed the new program? I will be now forcing myself to use Quicken for managing my accounts.

Good luck to us all… I’m going go and play in traffic during rush hour…

Maureen I wouldn’t recommend going back to Quicken 2007 you will lose the capability to sync with your banks automatically soon enough. If you are looking for other options personally I would recommend You Need a Budget referenced in my review. It will do that and some.